Food Storage
Overview

After water, food is the next most
important topic for the survivalist.It
is possible to survive for weeks without food, but who would want
to? During a prolonged emergency there will be a lot of work to
do. Everyone will be better able to perform their chores if they
are well-nourished and satisfied. A healthy and balanced diet will
also help keep resistance to disease highan essential part
of preventative and survival health care.

Store what you use, and
use what you store.

All foods have a limited shelf-life, no matter how they
are stored or preserved. It is imperative that you have a plan for rotating
your food stash to keep it fresh. Even if your food doesn't spoil, through
time it will lose much of its nutritional value and flavor.

Many survivalists spend a lot of money on specially prepared foods that
they will never eat. An example is the highly-touted MRE's (Meals
Ready to Eat.) MRE's were invented by the military for long-term storage
of complete meals for survival situations when there is no means for preparing
or cooking food. The problem with MRE's is that they are very expensive,
especially if you are preparing for a prolonged emergency. I do not recommend
that you rely on them for the bulk of your emergency food stash. A few
MRE's in your bug out bag is okay. But forget about storing case upon
case of MRE's in your home stash.

In Ground Storage

The simplest method for short-term food storage is your
garden. Certain root vegetables, like carrots, turnips, parsnips
and horseradish, may be left in the ground through the winter. After the
ground begins to freeze, cover them with mulch, such as dry leaves or
straw, to protect them from hard freezes. They can then be dug up as needed
in the kitchen. Other cold-hardy crops, such as lettuce, cabbage, beets
and cauliflower, may also be left in the garden, protected by a heavy
mulch, for several weeks after the growing season.

Root Cellaring

In the old days before canning, people relied heavily
on their root cellars, which allowed them to store fruits and vegetables
through much of the winter. Most fresh foods need a very cool and
slightly moist environment. Dirt floors are ideal, and the procedure works
best in areas where the winter months are very cold. Most basements today
are too warm and dry, especially if they are equipped with a central heating
unit that is used to heat the house, so root cellars may not be practical
for many of us. There are several ways around this problem, including
insulating off a portion of your basement, or even better, digging outdoor
pits for storing your vegetables and fruits. To learn more, check out
the excellent books mentioned in the Additional
Resources section at the end of this web site, including Root
Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables
by Mike and Nancy Bubel.

Common Methods of Food Preservation

Before we take a look at the various methods of food
preservation, it will be helpful to discuss the factors that cause food
deterioration and spoilage. Chief among these are microorganisms,
which consist of bacteria, yeasts and fungi (molds.) Microorganisms, or
"microbes," require the presence of water to grow and
multiply. Most microbes, including molds, also require the presence of
oxygen. Some anaerobic microorganisms, including botulinumthe
causative agent of botulism, an extremely dangerous form of food poisoningcan
thrive in the complete absence of oxygen. Enzymes, which occur
naturally in plants, will cause foods to deteriorate in time resulting
in the loss of nutritional value, flavor and palatability. Enzymes also
require the presence or water or moisture. Exposure to light will
cause the destruction of some vitamins, and the rate of all chemical and
biological reactions, including the actions of enzymes and the growth
of microbes, will increase as the temperature increases. So all
preserved foods will keep better and longer when protected from light
and stored at cooler temperatures.

Dried Foods

Drying or dehydration is an excellent way to preserve
food. Without moisture, the microbes that are responsible for food
spoilage can not thrive and the enzymes that lead to deterioration are
inactivated, so the food is preserved in a form that is suitable for long-term
storage. Properly dehydrated foods do not require refrigeration. They
can be stored in airtight containers or plastic bags and will keep for
a year or longerthe dryer the food the longer it will store. When
dehydrating food for long-term storage, care must be taken to insure that
most of the water is removed, otherwise spoilage, particularly by molds,
could become a problem. As with all preservation techniques, some nutritional
value is lost during the drying process, but dehydrated foods retain most
of their nutritional value and dehydration remains one of the best ways
to prepare food for storage without the need for refrigeration or sterilization.
Since water is responsible for much of the bulk and most of the weight
of any food, dehydrated foods are lighter and more compact, making them
ideal for backpacking or for your bug out bag. If you want you can restore
dehydrated foods by soaking them in water for a few hours before eating
them. Dehydrated vegetables are great to use in soups and stews. Many
dehydrated foods, particularly fruits, are delicious right out of the
bag without rehydration. We will discuss food dehydration in more detail
later in this chapter.

As seen in the photograph above, dried foods are stored in airtight
containers made out of plastic or glass. Survivalists prefer plastic because
glass can can be easily broken during a disaster such as an earthquake.
Glass containers should be protected from breakage and light. You can
put them in a brown paper bag to protect from light.

Canned Foods

Canning requires the complete sterilization of the food
and container, completely eliminating all traces of microbes. The
enzymes that would in time lead to deterioration are also destroyed by
the heat used in the canning process. Special glass jars (e.g., Mason
jars) and two-piece lids are used for home canning. The lids are designed
to completely seal the jars with a vacuum inside which prevents the entry
of microorganisms. Properly canned foods will keep almost indefinitely,
but their quality begins to deteriorate after about a year so it is recommended
that they are consumed within a year or two. Canning sterilized foods
in a 10 minute boiling water bath in sterilized jars is adequate for high-acid
foods such as fruits, tomatoes and foods pickled in vinegar. Nonacid foods
such as meat, fish, fowl and vegetables require a higher temperature (240o
F or 116o C) which is obtainable only in a pressure canner.
A pressure cooker will double as a pressure canner providing it is large
enough to hold the glass jars that you are using. We will discuss canning
in more detail later in this chapter. Complete instructions for home canning
can be found in the instructions that will come with your canning equipment
or in any good canning recipe book. The instructions should be followed
closely. Click
here for More on Home Canning.

Commercially canned foodsthe familiar items that
we find on our grocery store shelvesusually come in either glass
jars or tin cans. In my opinion canned foods, whether commercially prepared
or canned at home, should make up the bulk of your food storage program.
They are by far the least expensive option when it comes to food storage.
They do not have to be refrigerated and they require minimal preparation
before serving. Most can be eaten right from the can. Canned foods also
contain a fair amount of water, which can come in handy in meeting your
daily water needs. Due to their water content canned foods are heavy when
compared to dehydrated foods, but you probably won't be hauling your home
stash around anyway. Canned foods come in convenient sizes, so an opened
can will probably be consumed without leaving leftovers which would require
refrigeration. They also stack well making it easy for you to rotate your
stores. You can gradually and economically build your home food storage
stash by purchasing a few extra canned goods each time you buy your groceries.

In my opinion canned foods should make up the bulk of your
food storage program.

The metal shelf pictured above, which I use for storing canned goods
in my basement, has been assembled with the shelves upside down. This
gives each shelf a lip around the edges to prevent the cans from sliding
off the shelves during an earthquake. Note also that I have used metal
strapping tape to fasten the shelving unit to a wooden joist in the ceiling
above, adding further stability and preventing it from toppling over.
On each shelf I store a different type of canned foodstarting at
the top with canned fruits and continuing down with soups, vegetables,
beans, fish and nuts, meats and finally sauces on the bottom. That way,
a quick glance reveals the types of canned foods we need to pick up on
our next visit to the grocery store, helping us maintain a balance of
each food type.

Special foods packed for long-term storage, like the powdered milk substitute
and the whole powdered eggs pictured above, are produced just for survivalists.
These foods are processed for very long shelf lifes and canned in nitrogen
gas in large #10 cans. They have a recommended shelf life of at least
10 years. The only problem I have with them is they ignore the "store
what you eat and eat what you store" rule. They are not as easy to
rotate into your daily diet as regularly canned foods.

Since your home-canned foods are stored in glass jars, it is particularly
important to protect them from breakage. Whenever possible, your jars
of food should be stored in the original boxes that the jars came it,
along with the cardboard partitions inside which will keep them from banging
against each other. The jars that are not in boxes are wrapped with bubble
wrap or separated with cardboard.

The photograph above shows how we secure the doors of the shelving units
that we use to store our glass jars, to prevent the jars from falling
out during an earthquake, by simply sliding a small board through the
handles. To keep the shelving units from toppling over they are securely
fastened to each other and to the wooden supporting beam behind them with
screws.

Frozen Foods

Freezing is an easy and convenient method of food preservation.
It is also very good at retaining the nutritional value of your food.
There is one huge and obvious disadvantage to freezing: What happens when
the electricity goes off? You can invest in a gasoline or propane-powered
generator to keep your freezer running during power outages. But eventually
you are going to run out of fuel for your generator. For that reason I
suggest that you do not rely on your freezer for your primary method of
food storage. If you are a hunter or have a garden and prefer freezing
to canning that is fine. Hopefully you will have a generator and will
be able to consume your frozen foods before you run out of fuel. But you
should also have a stash of foods that do not require freezing for those
longer emergencies.

When the power goes out the food in a full freestanding
freezer will be safe for about two days, providing you don't open the
door too much. A chest-type freezer is much more desirable than
an upright freezer because it will retain the cold longer. Remember that
the foods at greatest risk are meat, poultry and foods containing dairy
products. We will discuss freezing in more
detail in a later section of this chapter.

Freeze-Dried Foods

Freeze-Dried Foods are commercially prepared foods that have had their
water removed by a technique that involves several steps: First the food
is frozen. Then it is placed in a vacuum container and heated while the
air is removed from the container. The heat causes the ice crystals to
melt and the vacuum removes the moisture from the food and the container
leaving only the dried food behind. Freeze-dried foods are preserved in
much the same way as dehydrated foods and will keep a long time without
refrigeration. Freeze drying is a good method of food preservation, but
freeze-dried foods are too expensive to use as your primary stash. If
you want you can include a few in your bug out bag. Like dehydrated foods,
they are compact, lightweight and do not require refrigeration. But I
do not recommend that you rely on freeze-dried foods for your primary
food stash.

Commercially-Prepared Dried
Goods

This category includes just about every food on your grocery store's
shelves other than canned goods, fresh foods and refrigerated items. They
are prepackaged and for the most part ready to go directly from the store's
shelves to the shelves of your home stash. Obviously shelf-life is an
important consideration and some foods will keep much better than others.
Good examples of foods that will keep well are sugar and powdered "instant"
milk. Some items, like wheat flour for bread making, are best purchased
in a less processed form. Rather than storing flour it is far better to
store whole wheat berries. Flour has a shelf-life of only a few months,
while whole wheat berries, when stored properly, have a shelf-life of
a thousand years. (Viable wheat berries thousands of years old have been
found in Egyptian tombs.) You will also need to stash away a hand-operated
grinder to grind the wheat berries into whole wheat flour when it comes
time for baking. (More on this in the next section.)

When considering which commercially prepared dried goods to store, and
how much to store, remember our Golden Rule (which I repeat because it
is so important):

Store only what you use, and use what you store.

Most commercially-prepared foods have limited shelf-lives and you must
have a program for rotating them into use on a regular basis.

Does your family use milk? If so, do you buy it in the bottle or carton
or do you buy powdered "instant" milk? If you use the former,
may I suggest that you start using the latter? Powdered "instant"
milk is an excellent survival food. Milk is high in nutrition, particularly
protein (which may be in short supply during a prolonged emergency.) Instant
milk stores well and doesn't require refrigeration until it is reconstituted
with water. You can easily reconstitute a little at a time, as it is needed,
avoiding refrigeration entirely. If your family is used to drinking milk
from the carton they will have to make an adjustment to the slightly different
taste of instant milk, but the adjustment is easily and quickly made because
instant milk tastes just as good as regular milk. It is just slightly
different.

My family does not drink a lot of milk, but we use some in cooking, I
add a little to my coffee, and I use it to make homemade yogurt and frozen
yogurt. I keep a full year's supply of instant milk in my stash at all
times, which for us consists of nine 4 pound (1.81 kg) boxes. The key
again is rotation. Whenever I empty a box of milk, I purchase another
one at the grocery store, but I am careful to put the new box at the very
back of the shelf, moving every other box toward the front so that the
oldest box (which by now is at the front) will be used first.

All of your stored foods, including your canned goods and even your frozen
foods, should be rotated in this manner. Always put the newest item at
the very back, moving every other item forward so that you will use the
oldest first. That way, as long as you are storing what you use, and using
what you store, your stock will always remain fresh and your food will
never go bad.

Other dried goods that you might consider storing include:

Dried beans, corn, rice, couscous and other grains.

Coffee - It is best to store whole roasted coffee
beans rather than ground coffee. You will need a coffee grinder. (Don't
use an electric one. What will you do when the electricity is off?)

You can grind your whole roasted coffee beans with a hand-operated coffee
grinder, like the one shown above. Or you can use the same hand-operated
grinder that you use to grind your wheat berries.

Sugar and Salt are important staples that should be stored
in sufficient quantities. Both have a shelf-life of 100 years or
longer, as long as they are sealed from air and protected from moisture.

Just about every food that you purchase from the grocery store, other
than refrigerated items, fresh produce, and fresh bakery goods, can also
be stashed away in quantity, as long as you remember to store what you
use and use what you store.

More on preparing foods for long-term food storage including
my instructional videos can be found on the next
page.

Action Step 9: Food
Check Lists - Food Storage

Turn to the page in you Action Planner where you have begun your "Get"
and "Do" lists for Food and begin making your lists. As you
progress through this chapter, and the remaining chapters of this web
site, you will think of additional items to add to your lists. When you
acquire an item or accomplish a task check it off your list. That way
it will be very easy to see your accomplishments and to monitor your progress.
This will give you additional incentive and motivation and you will accomplish
your preparedness goals in a surprisingly short period of time, and in
an efficient and almost effortless manner.

Here's a way to quickly and systematically build up a one-week
(or longer) supply of emergency food:

Each time you buy groceries, for one or two of the nonperishable
items on your shopping list, buy twice as many as you need. Instead
of buying one bottle of ketchup, for example, buy two. Put the extra bottle
in your pantry. When you are running low of ketchup, rather than using
the extra bottle, put ketchup on your grocery list as you normally would
and buy another bottle. Just don't forget to rotate the older bottle of
ketchup out of the pantry, using it first and putting the new bottle on
the shelf behind it. If you will do this each time you buy groceries,
for just one or two of the items on your list, in no time you will have
accumulated a one-week stash of emergency survival food. If there is ever
an emergency, and the grocery store shelves are empty, or if you can't
get to the store for a week, your family will not go hungry. When it comes
to emergency preparedness you will already be way ahead of most people.
You will also have taken the first step toward establishing your survival
food stash. After your one-week storage goal is complete, you can work
at increasing it to a two-week supply, or a one-month supply, or whatever
your goal is for your home food stash. And while you are at it, you can
use the same procedure to stock up on nonfood items like soap, toilet
paper, personal items, etc.